


twentieth century boy

by firstaudrina



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Hotel
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 01:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5648239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/pseuds/firstaudrina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's at night that the next whisper comes. It slides over Liz's skin while she sleeps and wakes her like a kiss. <i>Do you love me?</i> the whisper wonders. <i>I think I love you</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	twentieth century boy

It's too bad they crushed all those glass coffins, ground them down to powder and wood chips. Liz isn't sure how long Tristan would have lasted in one, but that's where she would have put him if given the choice, preserved and visible like Snow White. Waiting for a kiss to wake him again.

Liz gave his cold mouth one kiss. No dice.

 

 

Mrs. Evers keeps trying to get at the stain on Liz's floor.

It's like catnip to her, that big burgundy pool sunk into the carpet and turned nearly black. Liz will return from the front desk to find that ghostly old gal harrumphing over it, dabbing gently at its diffused edges with a bleach-soaked sponge. "Oh dear, oh dear," Mrs. Evers mutters, distressed. "You ought to have let me get at it right away!"

"I had other things on my mind," Liz answers wryly. Then she ushers Mrs. Evers out, promising her other stains, fresher stains; she should check room 45, those Swedes had a go at a party of teens on spring break. 

The thing of it is, Liz doesn't want the stain gone. Every day when she throws her legs over the side of the bed and puts her feet on the carpet, she can feel it: that slight difference in texture, the bristling softness giving way to stiff, almost crisp fibers. Tristan's blood greets her first thing every morning, or as soon as she steps in the door, or right before she falls asleep. 

It's the only part of him she has left.

 

 

Liz has had affairs. She's had many silly, stupid little affairs with pretty boys who came and went, or came and died, boys who never looked at Liz and saw who she really was. Businessmen who thought her little more than an evening's entertainment. They always felt good during and cheap after – but not Tristan. Tristan felt good all the time.

He had mistake written all over him. He might as well have had _turn back now_ stamped on his forehead. He was too young, too handsome, too taken. But the strangest thing happened when he was with Liz: he got all tender and sweet, and he spoke to her with respect in his voice and awe in his eyes. For a while Liz pretended she couldn't see it, but then it was all she could see.

Liz remembers once they were in bed and Tristan was laid out beside her, all tan smooth skin good enough to taste, to savor like caramel on her tongue, that sweet. He was so relaxed he was melting into her sheets, his arms behind his head and his necklace like a tantalizing arrow drawing her down his body. His face was very soft, looking at her, and almost shy. "Hey Liz," he murmured, his flat voice with its limited inflections. "Hey, Liz? D'you think… Well, I was wondering –"

When he gave her his request, Liz's first intention was to balk, her lips pressed thin in disappointment. "I'm not a fetish," she said. She remembers saying that, haughty and proud. She knew what she was and wasn't, and she wasn't that.

"I _know_ ," Tristan replied with a roll of his eyes, as though the idea was too ridiculous to even entertain. "It's not like that." A careless grin spread across his handsome face. "Women do it. The Countess has a bright red one she likes to stick in Will Drake. It's called pegging." Liz huffed a laugh at that, these absurd terms for every little thing that they had today, and Tristan's smile went wider for a fraction of a second before he turned so serious, so shy. "It's just… I want to feel how you feel. You know?"

Liz touched his lovely mouth, his lovely brow. And she believed him that it wasn't a joke or a novelty, that it was Tristan wanting to be close to her, to know her. 

The only question Tristan had ever asked her about her name was whether it was Elizabeth or just Liz. "Liz always and forever, like diamonds," she had told him. He never asked if she ever had a different name.

She got him on his flat stomach and ran her hands down his spine, the gentle slope of his shoulders giving way to the dip of his waist and then the rise of his ass, the backs of his thighs. Tristan had his head turned, cheek pressed to the pillow; his mouth was open, cheeks flushed, eyes fluttering open and shut. Liz pressed close to him, the strange blushing coolness of his skin never feeling half as hot as hers and Tristan moaning, moaning, desperate for her heat. 

When they were done he flopped onto his back, legs splayed, and said with dull-eyed wonder, "Wow."

Their fingers played together, lacing and unlacing. "Wow indeed." Liz studied the lines of his profile, his tuft of cockatoo black and red hair, his gaping lips and dazed expression. He will look like that when he dies, faint surprise etched on his features, made drowsy with pleasure, blunted by shock.

 

 

Another time, Liz said to him, "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Rudy Valentino?"

Liz had uncovered a store of decaying star magazines, _Photoplay_ and _Silver Screen_ and _Movie Weekly_ , forgotten faces printed in black and white across the pages, nestled between columns of pat text. She was enjoying them at the desk, upon which Tristan was sitting, bored and trying to distract her. 

"No," he said. "Who is he, a designer?" 

Liz tsked, shaking her head. "You young people! No _references_ , no sense of your own history."

Tristan looked over his shoulder with an expression that would've been affronted if Tristan even felt anything as deep as that. "Valentino is _definitely_ a designer." 

"Out, out of my sight," Liz said, shooing him, but of course she hadn't meant it, and of course Tristan knew she didn't mean it, so instead of following directions he pulled the aging papers from her hands.

"I'm way hotter than this dude," he said before just tossing the magazine into the air, letting the delicate pages scatter. He wrapped Liz's scarf around his hand to pull her to him. "Admit it."

"I admit nothing." Liz only said it because she knew it would make Tristan grin and kiss her, right there in the lobby like there wasn't a danger in the world of getting caught. " _He's_ probably closer to my age."

Tristan rolled his eyes, thumb dragging over her mouth. "Hey," he said suddenly, smirking. "Anyone ever tell you you look like Elizabeth Taylor?" 

 

 

Liz sees him for the first time after Iris took the gun out of her hand, when Liz is still shaking with the intensity of her grief and adrenaline. Every moment feels precious suddenly because Liz only has a limited amount of them left before she's gone, gone for good. She almost smiles at herself in the mirror at the thought, then reaches for her jar of cold cream. That's when she hears his voice and her heart stops. 

"Liz? Hey, Liz?"

Liz whirls around and there he is: her Tristan, beautiful and confused, his lovely brow knit. She couldn't even explain the feeling that rises in her, the _happiness_ , and then a seam opens in his throat like a zipper, shock twisting his pretty features as blood gushes out of his wound – and out of it and out of it. A rough, ugly gasp rips its way out of Liz's throat but then it's all gone, just like that. The boy, the blood – everything.

She calls his name. She falls to her knees beside the stain he left behind but that's still all there is. He's still gone.

 

 

Liz starts chatting to Tristan after that. 

"This video Iris made, you wouldn't _believe_ ," Liz says. She sits at her vanity trying to even out her eyeliner. It's second nature at this point, but even then it can have a mind of its own. "The song, the rainbows, the _cats_! But what was really mad about it was that the whole thing was sort of…touching?" Liz considers this, looking at herself in the mirror. The drooping lids, the bald head, the wrinkles: ever since she let the Liz out, she's never felt ugly. It simply felt too magnificent to look at her reflection and _see_ herself for who she was. "That's all we want, isn't it? A little attention. The right _kind_ of attention. That's why Iris and I have got to stick together. If no one else is going to look at us, we've got to look at each other." Then, as she glances around her empty room, she adds sadly, "Isn't that right, honey?"

Or even shadows of their old book talks, Tristan so amazed by all those printed pages even if sometimes he had to ask for explanation upon explanation –

"I've been reading Highsmith." Liz is putting away her laundry, all carefully pressed and folded by Mrs. Evers. "Patricia Highsmith. _The Talented Mr. Ripley_ , I would have gotten around to giving you that. But I've been reading _The Price of Salt_. It makes me think of you, you know – there's a girl who stands behind a counter all day, and the spectacular creature who waltzes in and cracks open her world."

Liz's hands clutch in the silk scarves and velvet tunics and delicate stockings. Clench and release, swallow the tears, act normal. But sometimes it's just too hard. Liz releases a breath.

"You were here before. I don't know why you can't be here now. I spend half my days with ghosts and none of them are the one I want." She demands, "Where are you, Tristan?" There isn't any answer. "Where _are_ you?"

 

 

It's at night that the next whisper comes. It slides over Liz's skin while she sleeps and wakes her like a kiss. _Do you love me?_ the whisper wonders. _I think I love you_.

Liz starts awake and jerks to sitting, scrabbling for her lamp. No one is here. She must have dreamt him. But when her breathing has finally calmed and she feels safe enough to click off the light, when she puts her head back against the pillow – then she hears it again, and it's no dream.

"Do you love me?"

Liz shuts her eyes tight, hands clutching her sheets against her chest. The line of her lashes is wet with unshed tears. "Yes," she says. She hadn't said yes before, not right away, and she still regrets it. She regrets that there was any amount of time that he didn't know for sure. "Yes, I love you. I love you."

Liz feels the brush of a slightly cool touch against her cheek, then the soft but distinct press of lips. "I know," Tristan says. "I heard you the first time."


End file.
